Recent Entries

SIGNS

I was in bed Thursday night. Sad, with a little anger leftover from the day before mainly because I had a fight with my husband and we don't fight often. That's neither here nor there.

Something in me was calling me to my parent's home country, Colombia. I have had an inexplicable YEARNING to gather all my mom's recipes that she no longer uses, to learn additional ones, to travel to it, to buy authentic artisanal items.

Tonight, it went a step further and I decided to look up Colombian items on Etsy. I was met with so much beauty. I have my eye on some things I want for myself and to gift to others. But again, there was this yearning.

I yearn for my roots. I was only taken there one time by my mom (my dad couldn't go-I think bc of work) and I had JUST turned 1. It was for my uncle and cousin's funeral. Obviously I have no memory of it.

And they never took me after that because I was raised in an "all for one, one for all" kinda family. So basically, I was told that if all of us can't go, none of us can.

It made me sad as a child.

I went to Colombia when I was 33. To a wedding. In Cartagena. A destination wedding. It was far from where my mom and dad's family is, and I didn't have the time nor the funds to try.

Maybe that's why I feel what I feel. This yearning that is a little bit guilt.

Maybe it's because my mom almost died in 2020 as well as my dad, within days of each other.

My connection to that beautiful country was almost cut off.

Regardless, tonight, I had another yearning. A desire to claim my dual citizenship.

I have decided, in a matter of minutes, while scrolling through TikTok looking at people's videos lamenting the results of Terrible Tuesday, that this is what I want. WHAT I NEED.

So, per suual with my ADHD brain, I closed Tik Tok then went on Isnta and what was the first thing I saw?!?!?!?!

A GD POST STATING "IF YOU ARE OF COLOMBIAN ANCESTRY AND HAVE A SUDDEN URGE TO APPPLY FOR COLOMBIAN CITIZENSHIP THROUGH DESCENT, HERE ARE THE DOCUMENTS YOU NEED TO APPLY".

AY DIOS MIO! JESUS, MARIA Y JOSE!!! AVE MARIA!!!!

AHI EN ESE MOMENTO...senti feliz.

I know what I'm going to do now. To reclaim my power. I'm getting my dual citizenship.

Oh, and another reason I have this yearning to go back to my roots...it's to show my parents who voted for HIM twice that where they are from, is where *I* am from, too.

I am their blood, my DNA contains their happiness, their trauma, etc all from that BEAUTIFUL country.

The one that is moving forward....as the one I was born in moves backwards.

I ADORE my parents. I have reconciled this one thing about them. It's not their fault. If they were therapized, they wouldn't. They haven't healed from their trauma. It's not an excuse. It's what I, along with my therapist, have said about them.

Now more than ever, I will go HARD and speak Spanish to my son, ONLY Spanish. I have BEGGED them to only speak Spanish in front of him but bc I am married to a YT man they feel they need to speak in English to my son when he's around so my husband can understand. He has literally said. I NEED YOU TO SPEAK TO HIM IN SPANISH, I DONT CARE IF I DONT UNDERSTAND. I WANT *HIM* TO BE ABLE TO!.

So for the rest of this year and in the first months of 2025, I vow to:

1) Only speak Spanish to my son. (this is harder than it sounds, I am the only Spanish speaker in my little family of 4!)

2) Have cooking sessions with my mom, get her recipes and save them.

3) Learn other recipes from Colombia as well.

4) Renew my USA passport so that I can--

5) GET MY COLOMBIAN CITIZENSHIP

That's it. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I can literally breathe better.

Following Terrible Tuesday I have a great need to vent so I will my posting.

A lot of shit has happened in 2024 and while I'm in therapy and on meds, I still need to vent!!!!!

Current Mood: angry

THIS IS HELL

My heart hurts.

I am not anti-Republican. I am anti-HIM.

It is literally hurting my soul and enraging me to find out that I know so many Latinos for HIM. So many Blacks for HIM. I even know, by association, a trans person who voted for HIM. I also know gay people who voted for HIM. People who were once "illegal aliens" who voted for HIM.

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: Iko Iko (My Bestie) Justin Wellington

Entry tags:

therapy

Thoughts for therapy

I feel as though as I am acting moody but I don't FEEL moody. It feels like an out of body experience. I'm acting like a Debbie Downer. My food sucked from Dunkin Donuts today. (latte AND ESPECIALLY my sugar crystal free blueberry muffin) I didn't get to partake in the GrubHub promo so I made my own lunch. It was a salad and it was a letdown. I am the Queen of My Own salads! Wtf. I guess I will never add pork belly to a salad.
I complained online about an apparent transplant in one of my FB group about Queens as they said Queens 'might' be included in today's promo because it said NYC. UGH. Tell me you're a transplant without telling me you're a transplant. Am I right? It's my own private page, I blocked out the names and profile pic (of flowers) so it's not like i did anything wrong.

Plus earlier today upon discovering the paper plates after being told we were 'out'. (SEE, husband, THIS IS WHY I ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING I POSSIBLY CAN SAID TO BE BY MOST EVERYONE. Just sayin.)

Then there is the thing that happened with stepchild and husband the other night....

But the weird thing is...when I am truly in a bad mood, I feel it. I feel darkness inside me, around me like it has me enveloped in it's arms. I feel tension in my neck, feel my eyebrows furrowed and also feel tension in my jaw. SO is darkness just following me around, unbeknownst to me?

Becuase I feel none of that. I feel light. Unbothered. On the surface. NO, even deep down I feel unbothered overall. I keep repeating to myself "husband took care of you while you were very sick this weekend, while he was (and still is) healing VERY uncomfortably from surgery on his penis". and "I love myself, my husband, my stepchild and child. I will do XYZ not in anger, but because of love." It helps.

So am I faking it till I make it? WTF is going on? The words coming out of my mouth and online are not matching up with how I feel. Or is my mind tricking me into thinking I'm okay?

I mean, I know I'm not. I'm under a lot of stress. I am the sole breadwinner of our family of 4 so I HAVE to be okay. But I am not. I had a fever Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and all day Saturday. And I didn't take a day off work. Why not? Punishment? For what, gd it. I am a good, decent person, but years of therapy still hasn't help me get rid of this great desire to self punish for ...nothing, really. SIGH.

Now my brain is running a mile a minute with all these thoughts and my heart is beating fast.

But again, I'm listening to my Spring playlist, all light music, catchy, etc. When truly moody, I venture towards darker music. IDK anything anymore

Lunch...

After my post about what I want to make this week to eat, what did I eat for lunch?

A shrimp quesadilla! LMAO. I swear, I could never follow through on things....Ok not 'never', but it sure feels like that.

Either way, it's sooo good. I recently learned from a TJ (Trader Joe's) facebook group that you can, actually, cook shrimp straight from frozen. So I came up with the following: shrimp (didn't count, just looked like a good amount) poured light EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) then just added salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cumin and powdered oregano by eyeballing it. Decided it needed more olive oil, so I did just that.

I had a small amount of Mexican cheese blend by Sargento and an even smaller amount of Tillamook's mozzarella so I put the whole wheat tortilla in another pan while the shrimp cooked, added the cheese on one side and waited for it to melt. Once the shrimp were done, I did a rough chop and added the shrimp plus the sauce leftover in the pan and OMG...perfection.

The dish can be elevated with cilantro and lime juice but this did the trick during my 30 minute lunch. I didn't exactly love the whole wheat tortilla for this dish-it works well for my breakfast wraps but not for lunch. Weird.

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Rapture by iio ft Nadia Ali

Entry tags:

Good eats

Things I've made this week:
French toast stuffed with Nutella, strawberries and banana.
Breakfast wrap made of whole wheat tortilla, scrambled eggs, cheese and bacon.

Things I want to make this week:
Spinach salad with pan seared salmon, honey goat cheese, walnuts and strawberries, balsamic vinaigrette

Rosemary and balsamic chicken with spring salad mix, carrots and cucumbers, probably just oil and vinegar for dressing

Smoothie (spinach, banana, almond milk, peanut butter, ice and protein mix)

Yogurt parfait (Greek yogurt, grapes and granola is 1 option, 2nd option is Greek yogurt, strawberries, milled flax seed and walnuts)

Soup (Asian style with wontons, hopefully can find bok choy in my local market by then)

Avocado toast with bacon, tomato and lettuce

Let's see how many of these I actually make.

Entry tags:

spring baking championship

Spring Baking Championship, Season 8

I rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreally dislike Molly Yeh as host this year. Never heard of her before this season of SBC, but that's not an issue for me at all. I didn't know who Jesse Palmer was when he started (my Giants fan of a husband did LOL) but instantly fell in love with him. Didn't know who Ali Khan was either and while I didn't love him, I didn't feel this strongly about him the way I do Molly.

She is cringeworthy. She comes off as very fake, the way she talks sometimes is childlike, opens her eyes super wide and her mouth in 'wonderment'. Exaggerated face reactions. Don't get me started on her hair and outfits, she dresses like a toddler. Jesse was debonair.

OH!!!! and WTF is up with cookie salad??!!! Since when does the host have a say in what the bakers have to make for judging? Did I miss something in previous seasons where this was a thing? It seems like it's the Molly Yeh show and ... this ain't it, fam. She said "this is a regional dish" when describing this dish buuuut the two Europeans on the show were horrified (rightfully so) to hear the term "cookie salad". I just wanted the judges to each say "just remember this doesn't represent the USA, I promise!"

AND!!! Another challenge was based off of pictures SHE took of her farm...like, really?...REALLY? Welcome to The Molly Show, I guess.

In another episode, she caused a contestant to burn whatever was in the oven because she was doing the interview with them. GRR. I could tell some of the contestants just tolerated her too, versus having a genuine rapport (Hi, Justin).

I had to put my laptop to the side today in the middle of typing this, but before I came back to this, I decided to Google her. This is from her Wikipedia page: "She took over as host of Spring Baking Championship for its eighth season, premiering February 28, 2022. Long-time fans of the show were disappointed with Yeh as the host claiming Yeh was a constant nuisance to the bakers asking too many personal questions. Fans also felt Yeh's recipes such as cookie salads and baking with sprinkles was just too amateurish for the many accomplished bakers on the show."

Ouch. At least I'm not the only one. I even found a Reddit post complaining about her and missing Jesse Palmer. He's just SO good as the host of Holiday Baking Championship, so why not host both?!

P.S. I like Kardea Brown, definitely want to see here again on SBC!

Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: Techno Cumbia by Selena

Entry tags:

Dancing my troubles away

Zumba. I love it and I love that it was invented by a Colombian. My family comes from there and we are always happy to show support to Colombians trying to make a mark in the world and since I first heard about it over 17 years ago I've been hooked.

Today, we danced to a Selena song that I was SHOCKED but happy to hear. The song is called Techno Cumbia and it was heavily remixed but it was such a pleasant surprise. I almost wanted to cry. Selena, a Chicana who was not fluent in Spanish but learned it to crossover in the music biz, was murdered when I was 10 and I had only just became a fan of hers like a year before. She was only female Spanish singing artist I loved at the time so it hurt a lot. I never imagined I'd dance to one of her songs in a Zumba class *all* these years later. I've only ever danced to her music in my parent's living room or childhood bedroom. (1 year after Selena was murdered, I discovered Shakira with her Pies Descalzos album and this lil Latina felt content to have another Spanish singing female artist to look up to.)

This was the first class I took in two weeks. Before that, the last time was in early March, prior to the carpal tunnel release surgery on my right (dominant hand). I love going to classes in person because I'm a people person and feed off the energy of the other people in the room and of the instructor's.

Either way, I needed to go today. I needed the release. Husband had the procedure to remove the cancer from his penis and it went well. He will require a final treatment which will consist of a 'heavy duty' cream that will make him "very uncomfortable", but the doctor said doing that last treatment will further reduce the chance of cancer reoccurring in that spot. Not sure if she said area, but anything that can reduce the chance of cancer anywhere for my husband is good.

I am tired of my couch potato status so I am pushing myself to go to Zumba classes 3 times this week. 4 would be a bonus. let's see if I complete that goal...

Anyway, I am exhausted from the day's event's so I hope to actually have a good's night sleep. My track record is not great, but I will try my best. My therapist has recommended me to put my phone away 1 hour before bed to unwind and read from my Kindle to lull myself to sleep. It's so easy for me to get lost for hours watching cooking or baking vloggers on FB, TikTok, or to randomly search for something online, which leads me down a rabbit hole of who invented this, when was this person killed, why is that called what it is called, you get the drift...

The word of the day is relieved. I am relieved my husband is cancer free now as of today! :)

Current Mood: exhausted

Entry tags:

C words...

I've been living in fear lately. Fearful of the unknown regarding my dad's health and fear of the unknown regarding what my husband's future health looks like as well and for the cherry on top, my own.

My father had another liver biopsy done yesterday, through his neck. It will tell us what the next step is. He is sitting quite literally, on the border of needing a transplant per his MELD score (Model for End Stage Liver Disease). He has a history of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease but they (doctors at a world renowned liver disease/liver transplant institution in NYC) don't believe that's why he is close to end-stage cirrhosis. I don't know if time is my enemy or friend these days. I want more time with him, but more time with him also means I see him deteriorate and become a shell of the first man I loved. Cirrhosis. C word.

My husband is having his cancer surgery Monday. It is not fatal but it is cancer. THE C word. A word you don't want to hear coming out of your life partner's mouth. They told us that he will very likely get cancer on other parts of his body in the future, now that he had this type of cancer. It's in a private area so, no, sun screen would not have prevented it as you don't put sun screen there. The sun don't shine there. It's actually caused by a virus that he was gifted by his ex. I was also gifted that virus by an ex.

Anyway, he is the Chandler to my Monica so he is dealing with humor and calls it dick cancer. It's skin cancer, on his penis. I had no idea this was a thing. I thought the virus could only affect me and potentially cause cancer in ME. Now, he needs cancer screenings every 6 months not just for that but for other kinds of cancer. C word.

OH, BTW...he has been out of work for three years. Car accident at work. Cervical spine surgery left him worse, actually. Pesky, life-altering C words.

All this fear and stress has resulted in me having a fibromyalgia flare. Has me deeply rooted in depression and minor bouts of anxiety. My joints are hurting, muscles twitching and aching, head throbbing. My vision is blurry. My skin is in shambles thanks to seborrheic dermatitis as well as mild rosacea on my cheeks.

It's like I can't move. I try to make moments of happiness for myself. Then I'm left alone with my thoughts or my laptop because I'm still working from home and I find myself staring at the ceiling, unaware of how long I was in a trance. I find myself staring at the screen, dazed, unaware of how much time has passed.

I spring back and forth from "I HAVE TO CLEAN! I HAVE TO ORGANIZE! I HAVE TO WASH DISHES!" to not wanting to do anything, not being able to do anything.

Today was mother's day and I couldn't even fully enjoy it. I have two children, a bonus child and a bio child. Another C word. I adore them both, equally and without prejudice. Yes, I mean it. But it's a lot to handle all the above with my father, husband, plus working anywhere from 40-60 hours (from home), therapy sessions (Talk therapy biweekly, PT 3x week because of carpal tunnel surgery. Yet another C word.) and then gentle parenting a teen with mom issues and a toddler I am having trouble bonding with because he doesn't understand why mom is here (home) but not paying attention to him.

I sit on my bed typing this long ass entry and my back is hurting so damn much, I can no longer ignore it.
SO I'm ending this first post now. Good night, be well.

P.S. I never knew I could have a love/hate relationship with one specific letter of the alphabet, but I do. The Letter C. F you. I love someone with that initial so can't hate it fully. As much as I want to.

P.P.S. I actually feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders just by typing this out. So grateful.